


Bonus round 1 - fill 4

by oyogihodai (alder_knight)



Series: SASO 2016 fills [4]
Category: Free!
Genre: Cisswap, F/F, Femslash, Fluff, Genderbending, Italy, Not Beta Read, Roma | Rome, To Be Edited, Travel, sharkbait fluff friday
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-10
Updated: 2016-06-10
Packaged: 2018-07-14 04:07:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7152878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alder_knight/pseuds/oyogihodai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: "<a href="http://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/13489.html?thread=4568241#cmt4568241">Remember when RinHaru visited the Trevi fountain and Haru jumped in and wouldn't get out no matter how embarrassed Rin was or how many coins were landing on him?</a>"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bonus round 1 - fill 4

Championships were in Rome this year. No one on the team had ever been to Rome before, nobody but the coaching staff.

" _When in Rome, do as the Romans do_ ," quipped Rin to an underslept and irritated Haruka, loading their bags into the team shuttle to the airport. "It's a saying in English," she explained. "I had a literature teacher in Australia who said it was her favorite."

Haruka did not look nearly as interested as Rin had allowed herself to hope, and so they spent the ride mostly silent. Rin listened to music on her headphones while Haruka napped on her shoulder. The rest of their journey was uneventful.

They landed at Fiumicino International with three days to spare before the competition. Everyone was in taper, with only gentle practices allowed. Naturally, Rin wanted to explore in their down time.

"Come on," she told Haruka, holding up an open guidebook, "there's so much to see in this city! So much history!"

Haruka, antsy at their enforced exile from the pool, made no protest. She pulled a sundress on over her dry swimsuit and they went out sightseeing.

They walked a lot over the three days. The whole team was on strict nutritional restrictions from their trainer, but Rin and Haruka and a couple of the other swimmers split an espresso gelato, just to try it. Rin drank her coffee without milk in Italy.

"I thought you didn't like black coffee," commented Haruka. 

Rin smiled smugly over her paper cup. " _When in Rome_ …."

Haruka rolled her eyes and kept walking. 

Their coach hired a tour guide for a day and most of the team took advantage of the opportunity to visit a handful of art museums, the Sistine Chapel, and the Vatican. Rin realized with surprise that she and Haruka had never gone to an art museum together back home. She watched Haruka glide through the halls, her eyes passing over what didn’t warrant her attention and fixing on what did, as though she were in tune with some living aspect of the galleries that only she could understand.

She stood long enough in front of what looked to Rin like a plain, solid blue canvas that Rin began to fidget. Finally Haruka sighed and said, "Constructivist works are so hard to find in Japan." She turned and started down the walkway to the next exhibit, and Rin followed, bewildered and a little smitten.

Their nutritionist had given the whole team leave to seek out whatever complex carbohydrates might land in their paths over the days leading up to championships. With two nights before the races, Haruka and Rin broke away from the rest of the team, found themselves a quiet back-street trattoria, and ordered pasta.

Rin helped Haruka pick out a dish with a variety of seafoods, and selected the house marinara sauce with meatballs for herself. She cast a forlorn glance at the wine menu and then pointed to mineral water and nodded at their server.

"Grazie," she said, pronouncing their thanks carefully as he bowed away from their table.

When they finally left the eatery, dusk had fallen. Darkness proper moved in around the street lamps and sidewalks as they meandered back in the direction of their team’s hotel.

They stepped into an alley and Haruka stopped short. "What?" asked Rin. "What is it?"

Haruka shushed her. "Don’t you hear that?"

They both stood quietly for a moment. Then, unmistakably, Rin registered the distant hiss of rushing water. Haruka took off at a jog. 

"Haru…" called Rin warily, hurrying behind. She didn't want to run on a full stomach but she was losing sight of her. In short order, they were separated. Rin cursed and looked around the dark walkway, not wanting to resort to yelling after Haruka like a lost child. 

She stood and considered, feeling a little bit nervous and very annoyed, and then she heard a splash.

"Haru, no!" she yelled as she dashed around the corner in the direction of the noise.

She skidded to a halt on a plaza of dark cobblestones, a little ill from the run. In front of her towered a sight she had only seen in the guidebooks, immense and wondrous. It was a fountain, white marble, brightly illuminated in the dark of the evening, with jagged rocky ledges and larger-than-life figures of deities and horses. Waterfalls cascaded down its front. There, enraptured in its flow, engulfed in its torrents, stood Haruka.

Rin slowly descended the steps to the fountain and tried to gather herself, rein in all the conflicting emotions she felt at that moment: frustration, awe, embarrassment, a spark of envy, a dash of hunger at the sight of Haruka drenched and blissful. Some small part of her briefly considered wading in to join her. Then she realized they weren't alone. 

The streets weren't busy, but the Trevi fountain was a landmark and tourist destination, and small clusters of visitors out for a night stroll were standing around the fountain’s edge. Some commented wide-eyed to one another, privately scandalized, while a few were pointing and shouting in Italian, French, German. Rin couldn't make out what they were saying. 

"Haru," Rin hissed, trying not to cause a further scene, "get out of there!"

Haruka turned her head towards Rin's voice and opened her eyes. Rin felt her heart flutter. She was breathtaking. 

Then the yelling got louder and Rin snapped out of her reverie. People were laughing now, throwing coins, trying to hit the crazy barefoot woman standing in her bathing suit in the middle of the fountain. 

Now Rin was getting angry. Haruka was weird, sure, but she wasn't hurting anybody. "Stop that," she called over to the loudest hecklers. They laughed louder. 

Shaking her head, Rin took off her shoes. She rolled up the legs of her pants, and she waded into the water. 

Haruka was facing away again, at least feigning obliviousness as coins plopped into the water by her feet. Rin reached out and placed her hand gently on Haruka's shoulder. 

"Haru," she said gently, only just audible over the crash of the fountain’s torrents. Haruka turned again and looked at her, blinking water from her bangs out of her eyes. 

"Come on," Rin said. "Let's go back now. Please, Haru."

Haruka seemed to consider. She looked at the coins, and at the other tourists, and up at the immense carved figures above her, and then back at Rin. She nodded, and when Rin offered her hand, she took it. 

Rin led her out of the water. When they stepped out into the dry plaza, she took off her cardigan and used it to help dry Haruka off. A trio of older women were hovering, scolding them both in fast Italian, but Rin tried to brush them off while Haruka pulled her sundress back on. 

"Scusa," she apologized, "scusa, non parlo italiano," steering Haruka and herself away from the fountain and the yelling, back into the alleyways until they were alone again. They took a moment to breathe. Rin bent to tie her tennis shoes.

Haruka’s hair was dripping into her face. She looked down and to the side as she told Rin, "I’m sorry. I made trouble for you."

Rin looked up at her, waiting to see if she had more to say. She did.

"When the Iwatobi team came to visit over break, Rei and I watched this movie where a woman climbed into that fountain, and I thought…." She pushed her wet hair back behind her ear. "I thought Rei was right. It looked really beautiful."

Rin allowed herself a wry smile as she rose and stood nose-to-nose with the dripping wet Haruka, who’d just climbed out of a national landmark. "It was beautiful," she murmured, and she leaned in and kissed Haruka’s wet lips. "You’re beautiful. And you’re so, so weird. And totally a pain." She kissed her again. "I’m glad we’re together."

Haruka quirked her eyebrow in what could have been annoyance if her mouth weren’t working so hard to fight a smile.

"Come on," said Rin, "let’s go back to the hotel and find the team."

Haruka took her hand, and they continued off into the balmy Italian night.

**Author's Note:**

> _la dolce free!-ta_
> 
> I spent way, way too long on this, and put way too much thought/effort into it instead of banging out shorter works faster. then had to rush to get it posted in time, which means it's neither a sketchier meme-quality piece of writing nor is it the higher standard I would want the story it was turning into to end up being. and then I hecked up the tags when I posted this (my internet was broken and my friggin phone reloaded and when I retyped the subject line I forgot to add the G rating) so my team got no credit and no points for it anyway.
> 
> SO I HOPE IT'S AT LEAST SEMI-ENJOYABLE AS ROUGHLY WRITTEN FLUFF ABOUT TRAVELLING because all I want to do is punch myself in the face about it.
> 
> at least it's appropriately timed for Fluff Friday? orz


End file.
